


they feel like beginnings

by onetiredboy



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, GUESS WHO MADE HIMSELF TOO SOFT ONCE AGAIN!, Other, Romance, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, affirmations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-15
Updated: 2020-03-15
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:55:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23152864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onetiredboy/pseuds/onetiredboy
Summary: Peter is so beautiful when he's like this.
Relationships: Peter Nureyev/Juno Steel
Comments: 28
Kudos: 294





	they feel like beginnings

**Author's Note:**

> Title from a poem by Pavana
> 
> "my wounds  
> don't feel  
> like wounds  
> in your hands.  
> they feel  
> like beginnings,  
> like a chance   
> to make things  
> right again."

Peter snores.

At the moment, his head is on the pillow just beside Juno’s. His silky black hair is falling into his face and he has no makeup on. One arm is thrown over Juno’s chest, one leg between Juno’s own. Every time he snores, he looks a little closer to getting some of that hair in his mouth – and then he breathes it back away again.

It’s not an ugly snore. As is infuriatingly typical for Peter Nureyev, he pulls it off. In secret, Juno is glad he does. The sound gives him something to focus on when his thoughts start crawling rampant behind the blacks of his eyes. It reminds him that he’s here – real, and Peter is real too, and Peter is beside him, and everything is okay.

Juno’s in a shirt and boxer shorts, nothing special. Nureyev’s wearing a white tank-top and pink briefs. It’s the most undressed (apart from the literal sense) that Juno’s ever seen him.

The idea of moving him at all hurts Juno. But what hurts more is the crick in his shoulders from the angle he’s on (there’s never a particular position that does it – his body decides on a case-by-case basis what will or won’t cause aches and pains). He aims to just shift himself a little bit… carefully…

Nureyev lets out a snort and his eyes blink open.

“Ah, shit,” Juno whispers, “Sorry.”

A small, contented smile is the only answer he gets. Nureyev blinks a few more times, and lifts a hand to stroke the side of Juno’s face.

Juno laughs and turns his head to kiss the soft skin of his palm, “Still sleepy?”

“Mmm,” Nureyev shifts close enough to kiss Juno’s cheek, and then lies his head on his shoulder. His hand keeps stroking the side of Juno’s face.

Juno can feel the rise and fall of his chest against him. He shifts so that they’re looking at each other, close enough that Nureyev’s two eyes almost seem one for a moment. Juno had been caught in those eyes from the moment they met. He’d never met anyone who had eyes like Nureyev’s – that could so easily go from flat and cold and intimidating to sparkling with childish excitement in the matter of a second. When they were on a heist, Nureyev’s eyes would shine with confidence and thrill. It was hard to feel like anything could ever go wrong when Peter Nureyev was looking at you with eyes like that.

Juno puts his hand on Nureyev’s side, just under his ribs. Nureyev closes his eyes and hums.

“Can I tell you a secret?” Juno whispers.

Nureyev opens his eyes again and raises an eyebrow. Juno would kiss his whole face all over for hours if he had the time. “Sure,” he says, and his voice is sleep-soft and croaky.

“I think you’re beautiful like this,” Juno says quietly, “I think you’re more beautiful like this than any other time I see you.”

Peter’s hand stops on the side of his face. His eyes go at once cold and then warm, shining.

“I think you’re handsome a lot of the time,” Juno continues, because it’s clear Nureyev doesn’t know what to say. “Your fashion is like nothing I’ve ever seen, I _wish_ I could look as fucking sexy as you look all the time—” Nureyev grins and tries to say something, but Juno talks over him, “—but. I can’t believe I get to see you like this. Sleepy, and hair messy,” he brushes Nureyev’s hair out of his forehead, “and _beautiful_.”

Nureyev’s eyes shine. Then they wobble, and he blinks, and laughs shakily as tears track down the side of his face onto the pillow. Just the two, before he presses Juno back to lean over him and down to kiss him.

It’s soft, slow. More of a pressing of their mouths together, but Juno’s heart sings and he holds Nureyev there with a hand in his silky-black hair for as long as he can before he pulls back.

“Juno,” Nureyev murmurs, and kisses the side of his mouth, and then buries his head into Juno’s shoulder.

Juno keeps his fingers carding through Peter’s hair until he leans back up again.

“There are very few people I ever am forced to be around without makeup on,” he says softly, “And each time it happens, I regard it an unfortunate and unavoidable embarrassment.”

“Nureyev—”

“Less so with you,” Peter soothes him, “With you I feel comfortable, because I feel less as though you judge me for it. But… regardless, I’ve never considered myself… beautiful. Like this.”

Juno lets his breath out in a forceful sigh, sinking into the pillows, “Nureyev, you are… so beautiful, it hurts.”

Nureyev laughs and leans down to kiss his cheek.

“I mean it,” Juno insists. “I ache when you’re beside me like this. I want to never stop kissing you, and telling you I love you, and—”

Juno’s voice stops in his throat a second too late. In his arms, Nureyev goes stiff.

A laugh punches out of Juno that is mostly nerves and air. He tries to form words, but none are there. His heart races.

It’s not that Nureyev doesn’t know that he loves him, and its not like Juno doesn’t know Nureyev loves him back. It’s just the stupid overcomplicated relationship he has with those three words, what they remind him of, all the people he’s—

Juno swallows down the lump in his throat. “I love you,” he whispers. His voice comes out strained and weak.

Nureyev’s body shakes against Juno’s. He’s not sure what that means, whether he’s laughing or crying or just overwhelmed – he can’t see his face.

Juno closes his eyes, which are quickly warming with tears, and wraps his arms around Nureyev, “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” comes the shaking voice from against his shoulder, Nureyev’s breath hot on his skin, and Juno laughs because they’re really both crying over three little words they already knew were true.

“I love you,” Juno says again, because he can’t seem to stop. He presses his lips against the side of Nureyev’s head and holds him there, “I love you so much.”

Nureyev laughs and sniffles and presses himself closer to Juno, and they hold each other like the world is ending.

But it isn’t.

It’s just three words. They still scare Juno half to death and he’s still not sure he’ll ever be able to say them again, but… the world isn’t going to come crashing down around him. Maybe this time, the universe might even let him keep the things that he admits he loves – maybe, like so many things before with Peter, hopefully, this can be the start of the end of all the bad things those words have always meant.

“I love you, Juno,” Peter mutters, pressing a soft kiss into his shoulder, and Juno smiles and hugs him tighter and says it back.

**Author's Note:**

> hmu... twitter @onetiredb0y... pls comment & kudos it makes my day..... i love u thats all. hope youre all staying safe.


End file.
